Phorust Studios · Full release (1.0)
Hearth and Hamlet Guide & Walkthrough
Hearth and Hamlet guide: progression walkthrough, gold and blueprint routes, worker and happiness numbers, all 24 achievements and platform answers.
Official Trailer From the Town Crier
Latest Updates
- MAJOR Patch 1.0.04 fixes a rare crash when an enemy dies, corrects a quest that could be failed and still count as a win, and strips out defunct telemetry.
- MINOR Patch 1.0.03 makes Shift+Click on a blue arrow fast travel to it, and corrects the Soup Kitchen tooltip to read +20% food consumption.
- MINOR Patch 1.0.02 closes the Hover to Click double-harvest exploit and a dexterity bug that allowed a second building to be placed.
- MAJOR Patch 1.0.01 adds Hover to Click, rebuilds the save system with backup saves, and locks the research book tabs to one side.
- Phorust Studios reports 50,000 players in the first 24 hours after launch.
What is Hearth and Hamlet?
Hearth and Hamlet is a medieval idle city builder by Phorust Studios, published by Runic Forge and Gamersky Games and available on PC - Windows & Linux (Steam). It left its demo period and released in full on August 19, 2026, and 50,000 people bought and played it in the first 24 hours. A run starts at a single campfire and ends at a coronation: you assign workers across six resources, climb a research book, pass policies that trade happiness against gold, trade with four foreign kingdoms, and survive an Ancient Evil arc before the castle stage.
There are 24 achievements and four difficulties - Gentle, Steady, Challenging and Intense - and Steam's own unlock statistics show how far people get: 35.5% reach the coronation, and 2.7% finish on Intense. This site keeps the reference tables those runs need: the progression walkthrough, the building priority tiers, the achievement list with unlock rates, and straight answers on which platforms it is actually on.
Hearth and Hamlet Screenshots
Get Started in 5 Steps
- Raise storage before production. A resource sitting at its cap discards everything the workers behind it produce - the beginner guide starts here for a reason.
- Take the Chief House and Woodcutting Lodge lines. Between them they unlock the quarry, hunting, carpenter, stone, tavern and the Library.
- Keep the food reserve deep. Growth speed scales with stored food against consumption - see workers and population.
- Open trade before you lean on taxes. Trade income does not cost happiness; sustained high taxation does - the gold guide has the numbers.
- Leave magic and a standing army until the economy is stable. Both multiply a working kingdom and drain a struggling one - magic guide, raids guide.
The Steward Desk
Reference Tables & Live Data
All 24 Achievements
Every achievement with its global unlock rate and where it falls in a run.
TIERUpgrade Priority Tiers
Which buildings and research to buy first, and what can wait.
ASKSwitch, PS5, Xbox, Mobile
Every platform question answered in one table.
SPECSSystem Requirements
Minimum and recommended PC specs, plus Steam Deck and Linux.
LIVEPlayer Count
Concurrent players on Steam and how launch week is tracking.
PATCHPatch Notes
Every 1.0.x patch since launch, newest first.
The Record Room
Every Guide on This Site
Guides
- Hearth and Hamlet Blueprints: How to Get Them — Blueprints gate most mid-game upgrades in Hearth and Hamlet. Where green and blue blueprints come from, and what to do when an upgrade will not unlock.
- Hearth and Hamlet Beginner Guide: The First Hour — Your first hour in Hearth and Hamlet in order: storage before production, food before everything, and the three unlocks that open the rest of the run.
- Hearth and Hamlet Demo: Is It Still Available? — The Hearth and Hamlet demo ran from April 2026 to launch but is no longer listed. What it contained, what changed for 1.0, and whether saves transfer.
- Hearth and Hamlet Cathedral & Ancient Evil Guide — The Ancient Evil arc cuts happiness hard and points you at the Cathedral. What the event does, and how to be ready before it lands.
- Hearth and Hamlet Difficulty Levels Explained — All four Hearth and Hamlet difficulties with their Steam completion rates: Gentle 34.5%, Steady 26.5%, Challenging 8.6% and Intense 2.7%.
- Hearth and Hamlet: How to Get Gold Fast — Four gold sources in Hearth and Hamlet ranked by what they cost, why sustained high taxes lose money, and how to handle the 40,000 gold quest.
- Hearth and Hamlet Happiness & Policies Guide — Happiness scales every resource in Hearth and Hamlet. What high taxes, the Soup Kitchen and immigration cost, plus the congestion and sanitation limits.
- Hearth and Hamlet Magic & Witch's Mire Guide — How the magic line opens in Hearth and Hamlet - the wizard, Witch's Mire, the Magic Academy - and why rushing magic makes a weak kingdom worse.
- Hearth and Hamlet Raids & Military Guide — What soldiers cost in Hearth and Hamlet - food and iron per second, sixty-second training, 40% survival - and how to prepare without wrecking the economy.
- Hearth and Hamlet Research Guide: What to Buy First — How the research book works in Hearth and Hamlet, and why storage and Inspirational Leadership outrank raw production research early on.
- Hearth and Hamlet Tips: 12 Things Worth Knowing — Twelve Hearth and Hamlet tips the tutorial skips: storage caps, the food reserve multipliers, the manual harvesting buff and the growth penalties.
- Hearth and Hamlet Save File Location & Backups — Where to look for Hearth and Hamlet save files on Windows and Linux, how the 1.0.01 backup saves work, and why demo saves do not carry over.
- Hearth and Hamlet Trade & Expeditions Guide — The Hearth and Hamlet trade screen: caravans versus ships, four destinations and their demand, what the quality multipliers return, and what never to sell.
- Hearth and Hamlet Walkthrough: Camp to Coronation — The full progression route through Hearth and Hamlet: camp, town square, trade and blueprints, magic, the Ancient Evil arc, and the castle stage.
- Hearth and Hamlet Not Launching? Fixes That Work — Black screen with music, freezes at startup, UI off the screen - the fixes the developer gives, including the Vulkan and Compatibility launch options.
- Hearth and Hamlet Workers & Population Explained — How population becomes workers in Hearth and Hamlet, why later growth gives fewer workers per resident, and the food reserve multipliers for growth.
FAQ
Is it Heart and Hamlet or Hearth and Hamlet?
Hearth and Hamlet, with the 'th'. A hearth is the floor of a fireplace, which is where every run starts - a single campfire. 'Heart and Hamlet', 'hearht and hamlet' and 'hearth and hemlet' are all common misspellings that still find the same game on Steam.
What is Hearth and Hamlet?
A single-player medieval city-builder with incremental and idle mechanics, made by Phorust Studios and published by Runic Forge and Gamersky Games. You start with a campfire, assign workers to six resources, unlock buildings and research, pass policies, trade with four foreign kingdoms and end the run with a castle and a coronation.
How much does Hearth and Hamlet cost?
$7.99 USD on Steam, listed at $7.19 with the 10% launch discount as of August 25, 2026. It is a one-time purchase - there is no subscription, no battle pass and no in-game store.
How This Site Is Kept
Hearth and Hamlet Guide is an independent, unofficial fan resource for Hearth and Hamlet players — not affiliated with Phorust Studios.
- How we verify: Numbers here come from three checkable places: developer patch notes on Steam, the public Steam achievement statistics, and timestamped playthrough footage. Where a figure appears in only one of them, the sentence around it says so.
- Update cadence: Every 1.0.x patch is read within a day of release and any page whose numbers it touches is corrected the same day - the patch list on the updates page doubles as this site audit trail.
- What we don't do: No cheat-table values, no trainer or crack links, and no invented building costs. A number that could not be traced to a source is left out rather than rounded into a guess.